Chickasaw city leaders upset by playground removal

MOBILE, Alabama -- Mobile County school employees removed playground equipment today from a now-vacant elementary school in Chickasaw.

Mobile County school officials removed this playground equipment from the former Chickasaw Elementary on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011. (Press-Register/Rena Havner Philips)

As workers dug up concrete pilings and loaded brightly colored play equipment — including a tower and drawbridge — onto trucks, city officials grew angry.

“The entire city is very upset,” said Chickasaw Mayor Byron Pittman.

“I just wish that they would leave everything alone until the negotiations for our school system would be completed,” Pittman said. “They’re probably spending more money to remove it than what the equipment is worth.”

Chickasaw and nearby Satsuma are working to split from the county school system, hoping to open their own school districts in August. City leaders have met with Mobile County schools Superintendent Roy Nichols to negotiate the details of the splits, including which property will change hands.

Chickasaw City Councilman Adam Bourne commented today on Twitter: “MCPSS is pulling playground equipment from the old Chickasaw Elementary building and moving it out of town. Are you kidding?”

The equipment is going to Indian Springs Elementary in Prichard, said Tommy Sheffield, facilities manager for the Mobile County Public School System.

Sheffield said Indian Springs requested the playground equipment, which is worth thousands of dollars. On Tuesday, he said, his phone was ringing off the hook with calls from Chickasaw officials.

“Some people thought that it’s being stolen, which it’s not,” Sheffield said. “At this point, we’re just filling orders we have within our district for our children. This has nothing to do with the politics.”

Typically, the city that splits away from the system takes ownership of the school facilities within its boundaries. For Chickasaw, that would include the former Chickasaw elementary school, the current Chickasaw School of Math and Science and Hamilton Elementary.

The vacant elementary school — and the site of the playground in question — housed the math and science elementary magnet school until two years ago, when it moved to a former middle school across town.

Mobile County temporarily moved its alternative school for troubled kids to the site last year, which also angered Chickasaw leaders.

County school leaders had threatened to sue to try to stop the splits of Chickasaw and Satsuma but instead are seeking an attorney general’s opinion to determine whether the splits are legal.

Melody Hall, a former Parent Teacher Organization president at the elementary school, was driving down Alabama 43 on Tuesday to grab some lunch when she noticed that about one-third of the playground had been disassembled. The workers were on a lunch break.

“What are they doing?” she asked a Press-Register reporter. Hall, who lives in Semmes and has children still in the magnet program, said she helped raise money for the playground a couple of years ago.